by Skye Knizley
Whoever designed this ship wasn’t wrapped right, Raven thought.
There was a sealed bulkhead ahead and Raven crossed to it, wary of the black water beneath her. She turned the wheel and pushed through into another, similar, chamber. The water was deeper here, and covered with a thin film of diesel fuel that made rainbows on the surface. When Raven was a girl, she’d enjoyed such rainbows. She’d found them to be pretty, with their vibrant colors and muted edges. Now it was just another hazard. The chamber was full of diesel vapors that could be easily ignited if she wasn’t careful.
She took a breath of the fresh air coming through the door behind her and started across to the far bulkhead, which was sealed as the first had been. She was almost there when the door behind her slammed shut. She turned in surprise and saw Francois Du Guerre standing in front of the door. He was naked to the waist, wearing nothing but leather pants and his engineer-style boots. He clenched a sword in his hand and his torso was slick with diesel fuel.
“Hello, Ravenel,” he said.
“Francois. I thought you were dead,” Raven said.
Du Guerre smiled, that lopsided smile she had once been in love with. “Did you miss me?”
Raven shrugged. “Not really. But it was damned inconvenient of you to crash the Osprey. How did you get down here?”
Du Guerre approached Raven, sword at his side. “With difficulty. When the Osprey crashed I was drawn through a damaged ballast vent. After I surfaced I found myself here. I was looking for the way out when I found you. What are you doing here?”
Raven gripped the Automag tight in her right hand. “You know what I’m doing.”
Du Guerre was so close she could smell the blood on his breath. “I thought you’d be trying to escape, to get off this thing, not traipsing around down here. Come with me, I’ll keep you safe.”
Raven shook her head and backed away. “No. If we don’t stop this thing, innocents are going to die.”
Du Guerre shook his head. “Are things always so desperate, my little one? The ship will be destroyed in a short time, you said so yourself. You don’t have to stop it. Come, let us save ourselves.”
Raven ignored his outstretched hand and turned instead to the bulkhead door behind her. “Yes, I do. I need to give Aspen time to save the souls onboard, then the magik boys can come in here and dismantle this thing so it can’t cause any more trouble. I guess, I’m glad you’re alive, make yourself useful and make sure Aspen gets off this thing before it blows.”
She reached for the door’s locking wheel and pain ripped through her belly. She screamed in agony and surprise and looked down to see a foot of Du Guerre’s blade sticking through her body. In pain and confusion, she dropped her pistol and it fell to her feet with a clatter.
“You are not going anywhere, Ravenel. Except to hell.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Chicago, Illinois: 3401 W. Foster Avenue: 4:00 a.m.
The Chicago Public Library was quiet, almost tomblike in its absence of sound. Between the snow and the early hour, no one was about except those who had to be, which meant the normally busy library was empty save for Levac and Sable, who had roused the Head Librarian long enough to get the doors opened for emergency research.
Levac pushed the stack of old newspapers and books he’d been pouring over aside and rubbed his tired eyes. There had been nothing in the stack to indicate that Pace was anything more than the eccentric millionaire he appeared to be. He’d been born into money, raised with money and lived with money, away from the spotlight. Sure, he’d been involved in a handful of childhood pranks that, now Levac knew what Pace really was, were not so innocent. But nothing in his past showed who he was or where he’d been between Saylor’s death in 1939 and Pace’s birth in 1956.
“Dammit!” he yelled.
“Chill, Rupe, look what I found,” Sable said.
Levac looked at her. She was holding what looked like one of the city’s birth records. It was an oversized tome where births were registered and copies of certificates were kept.
“Where did you get that?”
Sable looked blank. “It was in the vault downstairs. Listen—”
Levac sat up. “How did you get into the vault?”
Sable glared at him. “Do you want to argue about breaking and entering or do you want me to tell you what I found?”
Levac gave in. “Tell me what you found.”
“The file says that Saylor died around midnight. There was only one hospital birth that morning, a girl named Hanna Brooke,” Sable said.
That name. He’d seen that name. He sorted through the pile of paper and pulled out an old newspaper article. “Hanna Brooke, died June 13, 1956. Murdered, an unsolved case where her throat was slit.”
Sable dropped into a chair across from him and flipped to a page she’d marked with a scrap of paper. “The same night that Sebastian Pace was born. I don’t think it’s a coincidence.”
“I don’t believe in coincidences. But who cut her throat? Or Saylor’s, for that matter?”
“I have a theory about that,” a voice said.
Levac almost fell out of his chair. He turned to see Thad, dressed in a blousy white shirt, black pants and a coat that looked three sizes too big for someone of his stature.
“I apologize if I surprised you, Rupert,” Thad said with a smile.
“Thad, I keep asking your family to stop sneaking up on me. Some of us are human,” Levac said.
Thad smiled and stroked his beard with one manicured finger. “Human-ish, my dear Rupert.”
“What are you doing here?” Levac asked.
Thad nodded at Sable, who shrugged. “My little sister called. I was as surprised as anyone, but she asked for my help, and I have a theory.”
He pulled a folded piece of paper out of one of his coat’s pockets and smoothed it out on the table. It was a charcoal sketch of a winged creature with an elongated head, pronounced fangs and serrated claws.
“I always wanted to draw, but Mom wouldn’t let me play in the fireplace,” Levac said.
Thad’s perfect brow creased. “I don’t understand.”
Sable turned the drawing so she could see it. “It’s late, he’s tired and his sense of humor sucks. What is this thing, Thad?”
“It is called a Soulbourn. They are creatures quite literally made from tattered souls. In days past, evil mages created them from their own souls to function as homunculi,” Thad said.
“Homunculi… That’s like a sort of magikal familiar,” Levac said.
Thad nodded. “Indeed, yes. Sable Branwen told me you found some sort of bloody bone-like substance in the wounds of the dead. This creature has claws of bone and fits the circumstances.”
Levac looked at the picture again. “Okay, one mystery solved. It doesn’t explain what he was doing with the Crescent Star or why he killed himself at least twice.”
Sable sat up suddenly. “I think we overlooked something. Rupe, what time exactly did you shoot Pace?”
Levac blinked and realization dawned. He opened his phone and checked the time he’d called King. “It was about 1:09 a.m.”
“Thad, in theory how long does a soul have to find another body if there is no vessel ready?” Sable asked.
“No more than a few minutes, longer if there is a Soulbourn nearby. Why?” Thad asked.
Levac stood so fast his chair fell over. “My God, he could be anywhere!”
Thad raised an eyebrow. “Who? This Sebastian Pace person?”
Sable began to gather her things. “Yes, Rupe killed him and sent him into the night, there are thousands—”
Thad stopped her with an outstretched hand. “Sister, swapping bodies and displacing an origin-soul isn’t like changing hats. It is a long and involved ritual. If you caught Pace by surprise, he is likely stuck on this plane with his Soulbourn. He
could not have had time to prepare or have his body drained of blood, a necessary step.”
Levac look Thad up and down. “How do you know all this?”
Thad’s smile was full of mischief. “I am Thaddeus Michael Arthfael Tempeste Von Strohm. I was not always a gunsmith, I have worn many hats. In modern parlance, I know shit.”
Levac looked at Sable. “The whole damn family is a bunch of wise-asses.”
“At least you know what to expect,” Sable said.
She lowered herself back into her chair. “My brain is fried and we are still no closer to figuring out what that thing on the Star is.”
“I cannot help you there,” Thad said.
Levac sat and picked at another piece of paper, not really seeing it. “We know it is probably a hellgate, just not what the significance of it being on a ship or why the ship has been missing for forty years.”
Thad sat on the table and crossed his legs. “A hellgate on a ship? A movable hellgate?”
“Yeah. At least that is the ritual that Pace was studying and it matches the description in The Book of Nine Gates,” Sable said.
“Impossible.”
“What do you mean?” Sable asked.
Thad turned to her, dislodging a stack of Levac’s books and papers. “Barring the fact that a hellgate is a virtual improbability, one that is movable is a definite impossibility. Hellgates are, by design, tied into the magikal nexus of Earth.”
“Which means it can’t move,” Levac said. “The same way you can’t take a light out of the socket and expect it to still work.”
“Precisely,” Thad said.
Levac scooped up the wad of plans sitting in front of him and ran to the next room with his coat flapping around him like a cape. He pulled on a stack of maps and thumbed through them until he found what he was looking for, an antique map of supposed ley lines around the country. He pulled it out, heedless of the damage caused to the rest of the pile, and spread it out on the nearby table.
“You were worried about me breaking into the vault and you’re dumping antiques on the floor,” Sable groused.
“I was wrong,” Levac said absently.
He found Chicago on the map and followed the ley lines across the country to New York, where a nexus, of sorts, was located just off the coast of New York.
“What was the Crescent Star’s original course?” he asked Sable.
Sable consulted her notes and tapped the map. “London to New York on this bearing, here.”
Levac drew a line across the map, making Thad wince at the damage. “Okay and where, approximately, did it vanish?”
She looked at her notes again and tapped a collection of lines off the coast of Iceland. “Here.”
Levac rolled up the map and stuffed it in his inside pocket. “It isn’t a hellgate. It doesn’t let things out of hell. It sends things there.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Sable asked.
Levac hurried toward the exit. “Think about it. Why did the ship vanish?”
“I have no fucking clue, Rupe!”
Levac stepped out into the frozen morning and dialed Harvey Pocock, all the while muttering, “Please pick up, please pick up—”
Pocock picked up on the fourth ring, and Levac could tell by his voice he’d been sleeping at his desk. “Forensics, Pocock Speaking.”
“Harvey, its Levac. I need you to run Sebastian Pace’s credit cards. Specifically I want to know about any travel plans he had today,” Levac said.
“Who?”
“Focus, Harvy! Sebastian Pace, he’s probably in autopsy right now. Run his cards and find out if he was flying to New York today.”
Pocock coughed tremendously and spat, then came back on the phone. “Sure, Rupe, how soon—”
“Now!”
Levac ended the call and turned to Sable. “Call King. He has to get Raven and Aspen off that ship. The only ones in danger are Raven, Aspen and anyone still aboard.”
“What are you talking about? Rupe, slow down!” Sable yelled.
Levac spun. “We don’t have time. King will listen to you, get them off the ship!”
Sable gaped at him, but then took out her phone and started dialing. Levac watched her for a moment then realized his own phone was ringing.
“Harvey, tell me you found something,” he said into the phone.
“Yup. Your Sebastian Pace bought a first class ticket to New York, arriving this morning at nine. It looks like he’d also chartered a helicopter to take him to an unknown destination,” Harvey said.
Levac nodded to himself and turned back to Sable, who was yelling at King. He was about to give her the information when he noticed a shadow moving along the wall, a section of grey that was darker than everything else. He was yelling a warning when the Soulbourn attacked Sable, knocking her prone in the snow.
“You ruined it! Ruined it all!” the Soulbourn snarled.
It had a decidedly feminine voice.
II
The Atlantic, Aboard Crescent Star, An Hour Before Dawn
Raven felt as if her guts were on fire, but the pain was nothing compared to the anger that flared behind her eyes. It was the second time Du Guerre had betrayed her, the second time he’d taken advantage of her trust. She pulled away from the blade and spun, the world going to the blue hue it took on when she called on her vampiric heritage. Du Guerre stood opposite, his blood-slick blade in hand and his self-satisfied smile in place.
“I’ve been waiting for this, Ravenel,” he said.
“Yeah. Me too,” Raven said.
She drew the katana over her shoulder and stepped back into a guard position. Du Guerre attacked, a slow, lazy swing that was more a test of her defenses, than anything. Raven blocked it easily, but didn’t return the attack, instead buying time for her wound to heal and give her an edge.
“Why? Why now?” she asked.
Du Guerre attacked and again she blocked. “Oh, I always intended to kill you, Ravenel. Now seemed like as good a time as any. I can leave your body here and return with your familiar as my own. No one will be the wiser.”
“Aspen will know, Francois. She’s way smarter than you.”
Raven attacked, her own probing attack. Something didn’t feel right. Du Guerre riposted and lashed out with his foot. Raven spun aside and punched him in the stomach, drawing a satisfied whoosh of breath from him. He backed away and caught his breath.
“You are a challenge, Ravenel. I will give you that, but you will die, nonetheless.”
He attacked, faster this time. Steel clanged on steel and sparks flew, igniting the diesel where it floated atop the water and surrounding them in flame. When Raven blocked Du Guerre’s next swing, he raked his blade through the water, coating it in flaming diesel. His eyes reflected the eerie light and he smiled wide enough to show fang.
“I haven’t had this much fun in years,” he said.
He swung again, and again Raven blocked and circled, looking for an opening. How could she hope to defeat a thousand year old vampire who’d grown up with a blade in his hand? He was going to kill her.
Du Guerre’s blade was a flash of flaming silver when he attacked, Raven fought to block his fury, but he broke through her defenses and raked his sword across her back. She gasped in pain and rolled, putting out the flames that threatened to destroy her vest and the last of her gear. When she came up again, Du Guerre attacked, giving her no quarter. She fought hard, drawing on every trick she knew to keep him at bay, but it was hopeless. He was stronger, faster…
She clamped down on that thought. That wasn’t her. She’d defeated stronger foes than Du Guerre. In his case the cliché was true: he was a lover, not a fighter.
“Get out of my head,” she snarled.
Du Guerre looked perplexed. He took a step back and Raven charged, swinging her bla
de in a hard overhead arc that drew sparks from Du Guerre’s sword. For the first time during the fight his grin faltered. He fell back, but Raven wasn’t going to let him…it…go.
“As much as I hate him, Francois has a code. It’s a stupid, vampire code, but he would never stab me in the back. At least not with a blade. He would have the guts to face me head on and get his ass kicked,” Raven said.
“Don’t flatter yourself, Ravenel. You are not worthy—”
Raven spun and lashed out with one heel in a spin kick that left Du Guerre’s jaw dislocated. Her blade rang against his and she twisted, sending both swords into the pool beneath them.
“Give it a rest, will you? You aren’t Du Guerre. You had me going, there. But you couldn’t resist getting in my head. Mistake,” Raven said.
She bent and picked up her pistol while Du Guerre pushed his jaw back into place and smiled.
“You are very clever, Ravenel Tempeste. Very clever.”
Raven sighted down the barrel, her gaze focused on the bridge of his nose. “You’ll find I’m full of surprises, pal.”
The thing began to morph to another shape and Raven squeezed the trigger. His head vanished in a cloud of blood and gore and the body fell noiselessly into the water. A moment later the ship shuddered and the water level began to rise.
“Swell. What a sore loser,” Raven muttered.
She turned to the door behind her and spun the wheel, which squealed in protest. She yanked the door open and stepped through as the water below rose over her ankles and slammed it behind her. She found herself in a narrow chamber with a series of ballast relief valves and a flight of metal stairs leading back up into the ship. Raven smiled grimly at the valves and began to turn them, opening them all as far as they would go. She heard the rush of water in the chamber behind her and started up the stairs at a run. She spun the next door open and closed it behind her, then took stock of her surroundings.